Inductees in Industry - Jewelry

Senator Philip Allen (1785-1865) of Providence was a merchant, a textile magnate, a reform governor (1851-53), and a one-term United States Senator (1853-1859). The brother of Zachariah Allen, noted inventor and industrialist, and the uncle of Thomas Wilson Dorr, Allen was also prominent in banking and insurance.

A graduate of Brown University (Class of 1803), Philip Allen was Rhode Island’s most prominent political figure of the early 1850s. He was chosen governor as a Democrat in the April elections of 1851, 1852, and 1853.
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George Byron Champlin (1851-1946) was born in Providence on September 11, 1851, just after his old-line family had left their farm in southern Rhode Island to pursue new opportunities in the state's expanding capital city.&nbsp; George's father, Stanton B. Champlin, opened a produce business on Pine Street in the Downtown, but soon his interest turned to the jewelry industry.&nbsp; In 1872, twenty-one year old George joined his father to establish Stanton B.
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Nehemiah Dodge, 1769-1843 was a pioneering Rhode Island industrialist whose craft was that of "manufacturing jeweler". He is generally regarded as the principle founder of Rhode Island's costume jewelry industry. His most famous apprentice was Jabez Gorham (1792-1869), founder of the internationally renowned Gorham Manufacturing Company.
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After an apprenticeship to Nehemiah Dodge, Jabez Gorham became the foremost Rhode Island producer of jewelry and silverware. While in his twenties, Gorham established a shop at North Main and Steeple Streets, the first of several buildings that formed his original factory complex. By the end of the century, the company he founded was a world leader in the production of silverware.

Jabez Gorham came from a long line of illustrious New Englanders.
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William Henry Luther was born in Dover, New Hampshire on April 24, 1844.&nbsp;The Luther family moved to Providence four years later where young Henry attended public school with some additional instruction at a local private school.&nbsp;Luther and his brother became interested in the lapidary trade, and after learning the essentials of the industry in Attleboro, they&nbsp;established their business in 1864 on 79 Pine Street in Providence.
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Archibald Silverman, 1880-1967, was a Providence jewelry manufacturer, and civic leader for many years.&His wife, Ida Silverman was a crusader for the establishment of the State of Israel and played important role in fund-raising for Rhode Island hospitals. The Silvermans aided in building nearly one hundred synagogues throughout the world.
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